Masterpiece
by ganlopez84
Summary: A series of short stories chronicling the adventures of Burhadin, an aspiring artificer on the plane of al-Ulah, as he attempts to complete his greatest work-to-date. Original characters and plane set in the M:tG multiverse.


Stooped over the small desk where he was working, Burhadin carefully lifted the glass etching scalpel he was holding away from his current work. Placing the etcher neatly next to its kin on the desk's surface, he took a moment to slightly adjust the focus on the magnification glass strapped over his eye.

Burhadin allowed himself a smile as he gazed at his labors, since he was not completely done, not yet. But he had nearly completed the first leg of his masterpiece. Clutched in a vise on his desk was a delicate work of glass, shaped in the stylized form of a heart common to all cultures of men. Carefully etched all over its surface was intricate calligraphy, the physical pathways that channeled and contained the spiritual power of the Empyrean. Though he tried to quash the feelings of pride that would bring on another smile, Burhadin simply could not, flashing his teeth to the empty room yet again. This time his focus had switched from the heart to the artificial body in which it would reside.

Stading a few yards away from Burhadin was the rest of his masterpiece. The hulking golem, in the shape of a slightly lumpy man, crouched in the center of the workshop. The creature's flesh was made from countless scales of overlapping mirrored glass, which reflected perfectly the moonlight spilling in from the windows. Not a smudge or crack stained the golem's scaly skin as it remained motionless, as yet unpowered.

Each of those scales, Burhadin remembered, had been its own journey. Closing his eyes, he recalled the long three years it took to collect each of them. He remembered going out into the Shining Plain, the desert of pure glass created by the first Ascended Sultan, and searching for only the most perfect glass shards. He had weighed each, tested it for its alchemical purity, and if it was found worthy, he returned it to his workshop. There, on the underside of the shard, he had carefully inscribed the sacred calligraphy necessary to animate his creation, and then lovingly affixed it to the golem's iron skeleton.

A mirror golem was not an easy thing to created, not at all, and when he presented it to the Mufti he would certainly make his own place at the Ascended Emir's court, apart from his father. He could have taken the easy way, of course, and simply paid hirelings to do all the gathering and etching and constucting, but magical things had a funny way of turning out wrongly when the easy way was taken in their fashioning. Opening his eyes finally, Burhadin put away his memories and let his smile fall off, preparing for the serious work of installing the heart.

He carefully unstrapped the magnifying glass from his head, placing it next to the rest of his etching tools. With a hand made steady by years of work as an Artefactor, he grasped the inscribed heart with pair of padded tongs while he loosened the vise. Stepping carefully away from his worktable with the heart, he moved slowly and deliberately over to his embryonic creation. A few of the scales on the mirror golem's chest has been affixed to a plate that could swing open, as it was now, revealing a cavity in the thing's chest. Burhadin stepped up onto a small footstool, allowing him access to the cavity, where he carefully deposited the inscribed heart.

Stepping back down again, he regarded his work carefully one last time, before stooping to retrieve a small blow torch from a pedastel next to the footstool. This magical tool could produce with a command word a white hot flame small enough with which to do intricate soddering work, while protecting the owner from any harm associated with its use. Holding the torch just a little out from his face as he uttered the command word, Burhadin realized when the flame sprang to life that there would be no going back after he sealed the cavity. If someting was wrong with the heart, or indeed, with most any part of the golem, he would have to shatter the whole thing and begin again.

Resolve steeling his nerves, with a prayer to the Empyrean softly on his lips, he stepped up onto the footstool again. He applied the tiny torch to the necessary parts of the chest hatch, sealing it shut with a few sparks and the acrid smell of melting metal. Extinguishing the torch with another nonsense word, Burhadin stepped off the footstool again to regard his labor. With the physical form of his creation completed, he could begin the second stage of this crafting.

All sense of happiness having left him for the serious-mindedness necessary to complete a great work of sorcerous Artefacting, Burhadin quickly and efficiently removed the footstool and small pedestal of tools to the back corner of his workshop. Now was the time to begin the second leg of his plan, imbuing the mirror golem with its first taste of magic. This was by far the easiest part of the golem's construction, but would reveal if he had made an error in constructing its body.

The Artefactor turned round to face the part of his workshop to which he had had his back for hours as he completed the golem's heart. There, he had expected to see one of his faithful myr, clad in skin of burnished gold, as he had commanded it to remain while he worked on the heart. The myr was necessary to summon enough power for Burhadin to charge the golem. All those years in the workshop had not really given the young Artefactor time to seek out more the conventional sources of mana that lay hidden in the metallic savannahs and glassy deserts that covered the Sultanate.

It was as great a credit to his highborn upbrining as to his steely state of mind that Burhadin did not cry out when his expectation of a myr failed to materialize. The creature was not there, something that was simply unbelieveable. Unlike most golems, myr were intelligent, but like their lesser kin they were also completely passive. Only the Ascended knew the secret of creating them, but luckily Burhadin's father was highly favored by the Ascended Emir, who had gifted his family several of the creatures. The myr would not have left the room without being commanded to do so.

With a hurried step, but remaining as silent as possible, Burhadin rushed to the door of his workshop, which he noticed was slightly ajar. Peeking out into the hallway, he caught sight of a flash of brown fur and the glint of gold off a metal beak as they rounded the corner to another part of the manse. Widening his eyes and snorting in frustration, Burhadin recognized the theif immediately. The guards would never catch such a thing, not without magic, but Burhadin might be able to do so.

No battle sorcerer, Burhadin rushed back into his workshop to grab the first thing he could lay hands on to use as a weapon. In this case, a large wrench. Hurrying back out into the hallway, his silk slippers making quiet pat pat noises, he ran though the corridors of his family's palace hoping to catch the thief before it made off with his myr.


End file.
